Creating a stem cell donor: a case study in reproductive genetics

During the nearly 10 years since its introduction, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has been used predominantly to avoid giving birth to a child with identified genetic disease. Recently, PGD was used by a couple not only to test IVF-created embryos for genetic disease, but also to test for a nondisease trait related to immune compatibility with a child in the family in need of an hematropoetic stem cell transplant. This article describes the case, raises some ethical and policy issues, highlights gaps in U.S. policy, and finally makes some recommendations for addressing advancing genetic and reproductive technologies.     

Kurt Gottschaldt's ambiguous relationship with national socialism

Kurt Gottschaldt (1902-1991) was active in psychological research in Germany throughout much of the past century. His best-known contributions relate to three "twin camps" he ran in the late 1930s. These twin camps were designed help assess the relative contributions of heredity and environment in determining the development of psychological attributes and behavior. Gottschaldt's conclusions favored a hereditarian interpretation of his results, and Gottschaldt promoted the relevance of his twin research to "race psychology." Although Gottschaldt is sometimes described as a defender of scientific objectivity who maintained independence from Nazi ideology during the National Socialist era, some of his work suggests that a modest revision of this view may be required.     

Developmental and sex-related differences in preschoolers' affective decision making

This study investigated developmental and sex-related differences in affective decision making, using a two-deck version of Children's Gambling Task administered to 3- and 4-year-old children. The main findings were that 4-year-old children displayed better decision-making performance than 3-year-olds. This effect was independent of developmental changes in inductive reasoning, language, and working memory. There were also sex differences in decision-making performance, which were apparent only in 3-year-old children and favored girls. Moreover, age predicted awareness of task and the correlation between the latter and decision-making performance was significant, but only in 4-year-old children. This study thus indicates that there is a remarkable developmental leap in affective decision making, whose effects are apparent around the age of 4, which according to our results, also marks the age when the correlation of declarative knowledge and decision-making performance becomes significant.     

The influence of eye movements and illumination on auditory localization

A critical analysis of a recent paper by Shelton and Searle (1980) on the visual facilitation of auditory localization is presented. The author claims that Shelton and Searle fail to make the relevant distinction between Warren’s (1970) frame of reference hypothesis and Jones’s (1975) spatial memory hypothesis. Shelton and Searle’s claim that they have demonstrated the existence of two distinct forms of visual facilitation is questioned. Data from an experiment in which auditory localization was tested under two levels of illumination (light and dark) and with two kinds of eye movement instructions (fixed and movement) are presented. The results show that facilitation occurs only when eye movements take place in a lighted environment. This is interpreted as supporting Warren’s frame of reference hypothesis.